HR: 0800h
AN: ED51A-0129    [Abstracts]
TI: LSU Virtual Museum: Technology-Enhanced Geoscience Teacher Workshops for Louisiana K-8 Educators.
AU: * Warny, S
EM: swarny@lsu.edu
AF: Museum of Natural Science Louisiana State University, E-235 Howe Russell Geoscience Complex, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, United States
AU: Egea-Kuehne, D
EM: dekueh@lsu.edu
AF: Department of Educational Theory, Policy and Practice Louisiana State University, 123 Peabody Hall, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, United States
AU: Tedford, R
EM: rtedfo1@lsu.edu
AF: Museum of Natural Science Louisiana State University, E-235 Howe Russell Geoscience Complex, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, United States
AU: Lopez, A
EM: alopez@lsu.edu
AF: Department of Biological Sciences, 437 Life Sciences Building, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, United States
AB: The Virtual Museum, a Louisiana Board of Regents sponsored SELECT program, is a collaborative project between the Museum of Natural Science and the French Education Project at Louisiana State University. It offers Louisiana science teachers, in-training teachers, and immersion teachers a professional development program via six videoconferences. These videoconferences are broadcast from LSU to six distance-learning sites across the entire state of Louisiana. This unique teacher population was selected because in Louisiana, there are two types of K-8 science teachers: teachers in traditional classroom settings and teachers in immersion programs. In the Foreign language Immersion programs, the target language (French or Spanish) is the language of instruction and communication in the classroom. For each videoconference, teachers are provided content material that is prepared by geology faculty and graduate students, example of ongoing field research by LSU faculty members, classroom-ready activities, information on available loan material and on-line resources, training on the unique Scope-On-A-Rope microscope, pre-made PowerPoint presentations and virtual museum photos, all, in French and in English. Three of the videoconferences emphasize regional and statewide earth science topics including Louisiana fossils, rocks and minerals, and field techniques used to interpret Louisiana's geologic history. The activities provided for teachers are hands-on, inquiry based classroom exercises that focus on the availability of local materials. These activities can also be scaled for use in a variety of grade-levels and teachers are encouraged to use these activities in their classrooms. The program has proven to foster new collaboration between science teachers in regular programs and immersion schools while boosting the interest statewide for natural science topics.
UR: http://appl003.lsu.edu/natsci/education.nsf/index
DE: 0800 EDUCATION
DE: 0805 Elementary and secondary education
DE: 0815 Informal education
DE: 0830 Teacher training
DE: 0845 Instructional tools
SC: Education and Human Resources [ED]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting